Odd Flowers and High Energy Magic
by Octarine Nova
Summary: This is a one shot that takes place at UU. Its about Ponder Stibbons, and if you can't identify the flowers, they're daylilies real world flowers . It was originally written as an ironic extended joke that shows how the wizards of UU might see daylili


Ponder Stibbons was stumped. He was up to his elbows in dirt, he had been searching for two hours, and he was sweaty, hot, and tired. Not that this was an unusual occurrence for him, even though he was a wizard in a university where wizards were famous for having ample girths, drinking heavily, and lounging about. Ponder Stibbons was a young wizard, one of a new kind of wizards. Wizards who were keen about learning and understanding magic, wizards who weren't just content to know that if you held a walrus pup under yellow light at high noon on the winter solstice you could cause trees as far away as Klatch to turn red. He wanted to know _why_ things worked, and so he was part of the group of young wizards who worked in the High Energy Magic Building of Ankh-Morpork's Unseen University, developing and studying Hex, Discworld's first computer.

Of course, this being Discworld, Hex was a thoroughly magical and illogical computer that included, among other things, a beach-ball that went 'parp' every fourteen minutes, a teddy bear, a mouse with regular supplies of cheese, and a complicated series of ant tunnels. This meant that Hex made about as much sense as the rest of Discworld, a circular world as flat as a geological pizza, but without the anchovies. Encircled by a never ending waterfall around its edges, Discworld was carried through space on the backs of four elephants the size of continents which in turn stood on the back of a giant turtle known as A'Tuin. Don't ask what A'Tuin stood on. It would be like asking what sound the colour yellow makes. Complete with a miniature sun and moon that move in a complicated pattern to induce seasons, this world is proof that, apparently, even Creators get bored occasionally and decide to have some fun. Naturally, in a world this geographically challenged, everything is held together by magic, which is being constantly spun by the very turning of the disc itself and which often appears in the most unexpected places. And none of it is at all logical.

Which explains why Ponder Stibbons often spent many hours dirty, sweaty and tired in the High Energy Magic building tweaking Hex. But it doesn't explain why he was doing the same thing in the university's garden.

"This doesn't make any sense whatsoever," Stibbons murmured in a tired, resigned way that indicated that he'd said this several dozen times already, and also that the universe had not started to make sense after having this pointed out.

There was a short row of flowers in front of him that were presumably the cause of all his frustration, since many of them had already been dug up, examined, and either placed to the side or dissected. The odd thing about these flowers was that, in fact, they weren't very odd. Sure, they had many pleasing patterns and different colours that indicated a complex breeding history and potential for great creativity, but apart from that they looked, more or less, like lilies, albeit lilies that weren't in the water and had stems. Apart from that they seemed like normal flowers with dozens of buds on each stem. They didn't try to eat passing insects, they didn't change colour, they didn't have enough minerals accumulated in their roots that you could mine them, and they certainly weren't about to do a tap dance, which in and of itself was slightly unusual so near the High Energy Magic Building, where all of the above happened at least once in the near garden section (sometimes all at once).

Ponder Stibbons continued to search the flowers for something feverishly for a few minutes, then stood up and walked away, muttering a last "This makes _no_ sense" as he left.

"Are you sure?"

The next morning, Ponder Stibbons was reporting his findings to the head of the university. Several senior wizards were sitting in the office, nonchalantly pretending to read or mark papers while really listening to the report with at least mild interest. Archchancellor Ridcully stood behind a massive and ornate desk scattered with various occult nick-nacks, which were, in the best wizarding tradition, gaudy and excessively shiny.

"Yes, I am, sir," Ponder Stibbons reported stiffly, nervously trying to avoid glancing at the Dean, who was rather forcefully pretending to be writing a high level spell and was so distracted that he was forgetting to negate the incorrect gestures that he was conducting, indicating that an explosion was imminent. Ponder Stibbons actually flinched as the Dean bypassed Grodenstein's Third Law entirely. "Um…shouldn't he be reversing tha—"

"Don't change the subject," Ridcully admonished. "Now, about these flowers…"

"Oh, yes, yes, I'm _sure_," Ponder gabbled quickly. "They're flowers in a naturally developed state, not under any magical influence, that we recently imported from Uberwald. They grow many buds on the same stem because all the flowers only last one day. Now," Ponder Stibbons paused for breath, obviously relieved that he'd finished, "could you_ please_ tell the Dean that—"

And then spell went off. Fortunately, the Dean had ignored or missed so many crucial magical laws that all the imperfections fought with each other and limited the reaction to a small but loud ball of eldritch fire that turned all the curtains in the room clashing shades of pink before fizzling out.

"Very impressive, Dean," Archchancellor Ridcully said. "Cleanest bit of magic I've seen all week. Can't say that I like your choice of colour, though. Now," he continued as he turned to the flabbergasted Stibbons, "if you have no objections Stibbons I think that we've found the perfect plant for ornaments around the university. All oddness aside, we can just have apprentices take the flowers off the stems everyday and put them in various locations where we feel that a little floral fragrance is needed. Cut flowers only last a day or so anyways," he added, eyes twinkling. "Stibbons, inform the gardeners that they are in charge of taking care of these plants from now on. Oh," he mentioned as Stibbons turned to leave, "and tell them to move the flowers away from the High Energy Magic Building. We wouldn't want them to get influenced to become normal, now would we?"


End file.
